Sandra Bullock thought 'Monster' husband was a "chauvinist bigot"

By Christopher Rocchio, 02/21/2007

Until she met future husband Jesse James when she took her godson on a tour of the Discovery Channel's Monster Garage set several years ago, actress Sandra Bullock had apparently not yet learned to not judge a book by its cover.

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"I assumed he was a homophobic chauvinist, a bigot who killed people," Bullock said of James in the March 2007 issue of InStyle. "And later I felt saddened by my assumptions because I wondered how many times had I written off people who truly were real."

The 42-year-old Bullock and 37-year-old James were married in July 2005, and Bullock described the two as "carbon copies of each other" when it comes to their diverse obsessions. "[It's] how the pistons shoot off in our head," she told InStyle. "One idea begets 700,000 other ones, all requiring immediate attention. At least my addiction is understood by my partner, and hopefully we can help each other find the normalcy. It's our normalcy; it's not anyone else's. I finally felt I had a net for the real me."

Despite the release of her new film Premonition later this month and all the effort she's put into her role as Pulitzer Prize-winning "To Kill a Mockingbird" author "Nelle" Harper Lee in the upcoming movie Infamous, Bullock said she can still commonly be found working at her husband's West Coast Choppers in Long Beach, CA -- the setting for James former reality series Monster Garage. While the cameras may be off, working on cars, motorcycles and just about any other vehicle is still James' passion, and Bullock said she would "never dream" of denying him of it.

"If you love it, you don't let go of it," she told InStyle, adding she frequently tells her girlfriends as they walk through West Coast Choppers, "I know you're not into cars, but you will be by the end."

When she's not working on movies or at West Coast Choppers, it seems Bullock is busy denying rumors that she and James are expecting a child. She denied the first set of rumors that she was with child in October 2005 and again had to silence whispers about her being pregnant in December 2006 -- when the couple issued a statement that said, "We are not with child, but we are pregnant with ideas."

"[The pregnancy rumors] are 100% false," she told InStyle. "How many times do people say, 'So when are you going to have kids?' Can I slap you now?"

Apparently not committed to having kids of their own -- James has three children from his two previous marriages -- Bullock said she is committed to making her relationship with the former Monster Garage star work.

"You know how you see sweet relationships not work because of time spent apart?" Bullock told InStyle. "Going for more than five days without seeing Jesse is hard. People are so good at attending to their jobs, their plants, their pets. Why is it that when it comes to a relationship, we just sort of go, 'Oh, it's here. It should just work.' It doesn't! I want to be as cognizant of nurturing this as I am diligent about the house restorations or the restaurant or my films."